FRAMED seeks to stretch the boundaries of digital art and take it beyond the confines of computer screen. The full-HD IPS display itself is gorgeous, with a walnut frame, but it’s more than just an attractive monitor. It also allows viewers to interact with artwork through motion and sound sensors. Read More

A 42-year-old artist named Megumi Igarashi has been arrested in Tokyo for transmitting 3D models of her vagina which, under Japanese obscenity laws, is considered illegal. She sent the files via email to customers who bought copies on her website. She was raising money to build a vagina-shaped boat.
The files in question are, to be clear, fairly stylized representations of the female form, as… Read More

It can be hard for third-party, high-end camera-accessory makers to distinguish themselves and attract consumer attention. Canon and Nikon make lenses for their own camera systems that tend to work better than most — in part because they’re making them in-house, with all the inside advantage that entails. But companies like Sigma have been providing alternatives for years. Read More

Artist Leo Selvaggio wants you to be him. Not completely – that’s impossible – but as a commentary on surveillance technology, Selvaggio has created something called URME, a mask that replicates his face and will essentially fool facial recognition systems into believing he is everywhere. It’s like a Guy Fawkes mask, only it’s Leo Selvs. Read More

People don’t want to buy copies of art, they want the original. And that’s been a huge problem for artists who create digital works that are easily copied. No scarcity means no market, so artists can’t make ends meet. But Monegraph, short for “monetized graphics”, uses cryptography to bring meatspace scarcity to online art. Read More

Twitter, a big hit with news junkies and those in the media industry, has been working to widen that scope to bring in more mainstream users, as well as those with other special interests. The latest group to be tapped are culture vultures: between March 24 and 30, Twitter will dedicate a week to museums across Europe and the UK, with hundreds of galleries signed up to produce special content… Read More

Google is launching a broad new effort to support the arts, in a way particularly appropriate to its role and business, with a project called DevArt that highlights modern artists using technology in general, and code in particular, to create their work.
The project will kick-off as an exhibit in The Barbican performing arts center in London, complete with four separate art installations. Read More

Latest Crunch Report

Let us go then, you and I, to meet Skryf, a robot created by Dutch artist Gijs Van Bon. The robot uses a repurposed CNC machine to spray out a thin layer of sand in the shape of letters and Van Bon uses it to print out lines of temporary poetry on sidewalks. As the robot writes, the feet of passersby spread the sand far and wide, destroying the art as it is created. Read More

Located in the heart of downtown Toronto, 500px’s new offices are expansive, impressive and just as laden with exposed brick and beams as anything you’ll see south of Market in San Francisco. When we visited last week, they’d only been there a few days, and only about a quarter of the space was set up, but even so it was impressive, and fitting for a startup that’s been… Read More

Last Friday, 40 people gathered at an apartment in lower Manhattan to take a look at a series of works by the artist Alexandra Posen. The pieces — colored wax on paper worked into abstract forms — sat informally against the window, and the group tossed out questions as Posen talked the group through her process.
This isn’t what you think of when someone says “tech… Read More

The Liberator gun made headlines when its creator fired up his 3D printer and created them, building firearms that actually fire out of little more than plastic components that combined cost little more than your average Blu-ray movie. Now, that pivotal moment in the history of DIY 3D printing is being ensconced in a London museum, Engadget reports. Read More

Curiator, a new app launching today at TechCrunch Disrupt SF, is not the first website that aims for people to discover and buy art, but it hopes its beautiful design, interactivity, and intelligent algorithms will mean that it will be the first to actually work. Read More

Programmers know how beautiful well-written code can be, but most users will never see the source code behind their software. The Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, however, wants to showcase the artistic potential of computer programming. It just acquired iPad app Planetary and its source code, the first time the museum has added a piece of code to its collection. Read More

Remember turning the corners of your class notes into flipbooks with a sequence of tiny drawings? iPad app Loop recreates the glee of watching your doodles come to life by making it easy to create frame-by-frame animations. Read More

If you’ve dismissed purikura apps as a way to besmirch photos with blingies, hearts and other cheesy graphics, then Chiizu will blow your mind. Created by a media artist, an illustrator and a designer, the photo decoration app for iOS offers themed sets by an outstanding roster of artists, including Linda Gavin, the original creator of Twitter’s logo; Dyna Moe, the woman behind… Read More

A designer named Tom Burtonwood has designed a book that contains 3D-scanned textures he has grabbed from museums and architecture in his home city of Chicago. The book, which is in the form of an accordion, is called an orihon and can be made on nearly any 3D printer. Read More

Ebay is generally credited with being the first company to bring auctions — a system that, for nearly 2,500 years, had exclusively taken place live in noisy, public (and offline) forums — into the Digital Era. But, today, in spite of the fact that eCommerce has become a thriving global industry, with online marketplaces collectively topping $1 trillion in sales last year, one market… Read More

Although 3D printing technology has existed for some time, it’s only now beginning to cross over into mainstream awareness, thanks to increasingly affordable access to the printers themselves as well as attention-grabbing headlines about 3D printed guns and life-saving medical applications. While less eye-catching, perhaps, the innovation is also powering a new class of creatives, who… Read More